The year-end box-office numbers are in from Telefilm Canada, which means that media pundits and touts from St John’s to Victoria will weigh in with theories and prognostication about the current and future state of moviegoing. But do they really know what they’re talking about?

According to the public funder, overall theatrical box office remained basically on par last year, clocking in at $831 million, compared to $831.3 million in 2005, while the magic 5% market share for Canadian films achieved in 2005 dipped to 4.1%, based on a ‘slumping’ Quebec New Wave, which claimed a 16.7% market share (down from 2005’s stellar 26.6%). English-language market numbers were up to a high of 1.7% from 2005’s meager 1.1%, on the shoulders of video game adaptation Silent Hill, which took in $4.2 million and Trailer Park Boys’ $3.7 million.

The overall Canadian box office is trending gradually in a southerly direction — at least it has for the past five years — and theories as to why range from the sociological to the exotic.

Some believe the amount of rain is to blame, while others think it’s a decade-old technology called DVD, and surging home theater sales. But another line of reasoning has early tech adopters also going to more movie theaters than the rest of us because they’re obsessive cinephiles. The point is really moot until we can all download HD movies in five minutes and watch them on our 100-inch screens.

Howard Lichtman, president of the Lightning Group, a Toronto-based research firm that tracks everything related to box office, cites birth rates, ethnicity, our love for all things British and our rising over-50 population as factors in a report called The Canadian Perspective, which goes all the way back to the American Revolution to explain why Americans like Happy Feet more than we do and why we like Casino Royale more than they do.

But is box office really sliding? Cineplex Entertainment released its annual report Feb. 6 for the period ending Dec. 31, 2006. President and CEO Ellis Jacob may be beaming in opera from the Met and the Leafs in HD to fill his theaters during slow afternoons and in between blockbusters, but the chain, which has roughly 75% of all screens in Canada, actually reported a box-office increase to $458.8 million last year from $308.6 million in 2005, although, then again, that number is grossly inflated due to theater acquisition and expansion.

Jacob is more worried these days about piracy and the shrinking DVD release window, which Fox shattered recently by announcing the release of Ben Stiller’s Night at the Museum only 97 days after its theatrical release.

A few exhibitors showed their displeasure by pulling the hit from theaters, but Fox was willing to risk the hand slap. Why? Because the major unveiled its second-quarter earnings earlier this month, and DVD revenues from titles such as Ice Age: The Meltdown and X-Men: The Last Stand fueled a 57% increase in the film unit’s operating income.

DVD continues to be the biggest cash cow for studios, and it also matters to Canadian distributors such as Alliance Atlantis, which shipped 230,000 units of Bon Cop, Bad Cop, a record for a Canadian film. But if AA wanted to kill the box-office revenue stream, it would have done so by now.

So, is box office going to be up or down this year? Will we all unite over the sequel invasion from Hollywood, starring Shrek, Spider-Man, Pirates of the Caribbean and Harry Potter?

Who knows? We may be sick of sequels by the end of the summer, and wait a few months for the DVD.